Talking therapy like counseling is a vital supplement to medication. There are three types of talking therapy that can be useful in helping you to cope with your voices: counselling, support groups and cognitive behavioural therapy. Of course like all medications antipsychotics have side effects and managing the side effects is something that everyone living with schizophrenia has to learn about (see our information sheet on Managing Side Effects).Ĭan talking therapy help with voice hearing? Most psychiatrists now have first hand experience of cases where two or three different drugs have been tried without beneficial effect before finding the right one that has brought about a dramatic improvement in the sufferer’s symptoms. Your aim is to work with the doctor to find the medication that works best for you in relieving your symptoms and to take that medication at the minimum effective dose. Sometimes people with voices will show a marked improvement within a few weeks of starting on an antipsychotic whereas for others it may take a little longer. However, do give your current medication a chance to work. If you do not think it is working well do not be afraid to suggest to the doctor that they try an alternative medication or change the dose. You can take this diary along with you when you see your GP or psychiatrist but also try to sum up briefly how the voices have been recently and whether you think the medication you are on is working well or not. Keeping a diary of how your voices have been can help the doctor prescribe the best medicine for you. It will also help if you note how strongly you have felt compelled to engage with the voices: that is to do what the voices have been telling you to do. You should note how frequent they have been during the day and also how nasty or nice they have been. It would help the doctor if you keep a diary of how your voices are from day to day. For this reason it is important to cooperate with the doctor in the prescribing process and to be pro-active in monitoring your condition. A drug that works well for one person may have little or no effect on another. However one of the biggest problems that doctors face when prescribing antipsychotics is that different medicines work differently on different people. This is because many antipsychotics also have a mild tranquillising effect. The third way that antipsychotics help is by reducing the anxiety that the voices cause. Similarly with voices that are critical of you, you may feel more detached from the voices and although you will still hear what they are saying about you, you will not feel so badly affected by their criticisms. That is to say that you will still hear the voices but you will not feel the overwhelming need to obey them that you used to feel. In addition it will reduce the compulsion that you have to engage with the voices. First of all it will tend to reduce the amount that you hear your voices. (Image: Creative Commons Attribution on Wikimedia Commons)Īntipsychotic medication can help in a number of ways. Modern atypical antipsychotic medicines for schizophrenia like risperidone do not have the unpleasant side effects of the earlier ones.
This is about the same effectiveness as penicillin has in treating an infectious illness such as pneumonia. Modern antipsychotics are 70 % effective in relieving the voices and will often make them disappear altogether. The first and most important defence you have against nasty voices is antipsychotic medication (also called neuroleptics).
#Coping skills for auditory hallucinations how to#
But it is possible to learn how to cope with the voices better or manage them so that they do not dominate your life as much.Įffects of antipsychotic medication on voice hearing
As anyone who has suffered with persecutory (nasty) voices will testify, voices can often be difficult to get rid of. It would be wonderful if we could give some hot tips that people could use to help deal with their voices but unfortunately voices aren’t like that. (See our information sheet on Understanding Voices for more about voice hearing). Often the voices will be in the third person and will constantly criticise the sufferer but sometimes they may also give the person direct instructions in which case they are known as command hallucinations. These voices are usually nasty or persecutory and can cause the sufferer enormous distress. Many people with schizophrenia experience hearing voices or auditory hallucinations as psychiatrists call them. Recent Developments in the Treatment of Schizophrenia.Religious and Spiritual Delusions in Schizophrenia.What can be done about depression in schizophrenia.Information for doctors and health workers.Treatments for Paranoia in Schizophrenia.Disclosure – telling other people about your schizophrenia.
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